


Hi Taehyun!

by retrouvaillesz



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cute, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Love Letters, M/M, Soft Choi Soobin, beomjun if you squint, txt bffism in general, tyunning besties, tyunning roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28400850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retrouvaillesz/pseuds/retrouvaillesz
Summary: Carefully inserting the letter back into its envelope, Taehyun tucks it away into his physics textbook. He’s curious about who the admirer could be, but he quickly pushes the thought away—he’s still got that reading response to do, and he’s hoping to get himself to bed by midnight.Taehyun gets to work, a soft smile still plastered on his face.in which Taehyun receives anonymous love letters, and he has no idea who it could be, and is too busy (or maybe too dense) to figure it out on his own.
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Kang Taehyun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 76
Collections: TXT Secret Santa Fic Fest 2020





	Hi Taehyun!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [candidtxt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candidtxt/gifts).



“I’m _poofed_ ,” Taehyun sighs, flopping onto his bed.

He lifts his head to take a look at Huening Kai, his dear roommate—only to find the other boy has his headphones on, completely engrossed with something he’s watching on his phone. Taehyun cranes his head as best as he can to catch what Kai is watching from the comfort of his bed, but it’s an awkward enough position that a) he can’t even really see anything, and b) Kai turns to look at him, probably feeling Taehyun’s eyes in his general direction, and he can’t help but to laugh as he takes of his headphones.

“What are you watching?” Taehyun asks, moving his head back before his neck starts to hurt.

“Avengers,” Kai answers briefly. “Are you going to bed soon? I can turn the lights off for us later if you are.”

“You always say that—and then you fall asleep halfway through the movie and leave the lights on until morning,” Taehyun teases. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a paper due in 3 days and I haven’t written anything past the introduction so…”

“Kang Taehyun? Procrastinating on an academic paper until 3 days before?” Kai fake-gasps, earning a pillow thrown to his face which only makes him burst into a fit of giggles.

“I’m not the biggest fan of reading responses, you know,” Taehyun grumbles.

“Good luck with that, then,” Kai tells him, flashing a quick smile paired with a thumbs-up before sliding his headphones back on and turning his attention back to his phone.

Taehyun sighs again. It’s 9pm, and he’s spent all day drifting in and out of classrooms, going from lecture to lecture and meeting to meeting, so all he really wants to do right now is take a nice, refreshing shower and get a good night’s sleep, but alas, assignment deadlines wait for no one.

Stretching his limbs like a cat, Taehyun gets up and goes to take his shower. _Glad we got a room with an attached bathroom_ , Taehyun thinks. It’s a lot more convenient, and he doesn’t have to spend all that extra time walking to and from the communal bathrooms when he could be using up that time to do work (or so he reasons, but it’s not like it would take _that_ long… he just likes how close the attached bathroom is to his _bed_ , really).

By the time Taehyun has washed away all of his fatigue from the day and dressed himself in clothes comfortable for him to work in but not comfortable enough for him to easily doze off in, Kai has already fallen asleep, headphones still on his head, hand still positioned like he’s holding his phone, and phone lying flat on his stomach. This is a regular occurrence, only sometimes it happens well after Taehyun has gone to bed, but on nights like this, Taehyun will always turn on the lamp by his desk, and turn off the rest of the lights. _Conserving energy_ and _saving the environment_ and all that.

Just as Taehyun reaches the switches, located right next to the door of their room, he pauses.

There’s a neat little envelope on the floor, right in front of the door.

_Huh_ , Taehyun ponders. _Did I drop this earlier on my way in or is it Kai’s?_ Funny, he can’t remember seeing anything on the floor from when he came in earlier, and he doesn’t even know if he had somehow acquired a small envelope over the course of the day. He can’t ask Kai either to make sure, considering his roommate is already far off into dreamland.

Shrugging his shoulders, Taehyun turns off the lights and picks up the envelope, bringing it back to his desk where he’ll be able to read it clearly. He’s not entirely sure if he _should_ open it and read it, remembers how reading other people’s mail is a crime, wonders if this envelope slipped under their room door counts as mail, remembers that accidentally opening other people’s mail is okay, wonders again if you could really call this postcard-sized thing mail.

Taehyun settles into his desk chair, flips the envelope over and finds another surprised waiting for him.

On the front of the envelope, written with a small marker in black ink: _Taehyun ◠‿◠_.

_Cute_ , he thinks. He can’t think of a single person who would slip him a letter like this, but at least he knows he won’t be committing any sort of crime tonight by opening and reading it.

_Hi Taehyun!_

_I noticed you’ve been busy these days, I hope you’re not overworking yourself_

_and that you’re still taking care! I know college is hell, but you never want to_

_get yourself sick from working too hard :(_

_You’ve been doing well :D_

_I know it might not be much, reading those words in an anonymous letter,_

_but I still wanted to write them anyway!_

_Take care,_

_Your secret admirer ◠‿◠_

The short letter brings a smile to Taehyun’s face. He considers how it could be creepy, how this person could be a stalker, but the contents of the letter seem harmless enough. He’ll have to receive more letters—assuming that there _will_ be more letters—to figure out if this ‘secret admirer’ is dangerous or not, but for now, Taehyun is thankful.

Carefully inserting the letter back into its envelope, Taehyun tucks it away into his physics textbook. He’s curious about who the admirer could be, but he quickly pushes the thought away—he’s still got that reading response to do, and he’s hoping to get himself to bed by midnight.

Taehyun gets to work, a soft smile still plastered on his face.

—

The weekend comes by faster than Taehyun anticipated, and suddenly Yeonjun and Beomgyu are dragging him to one of the parties hosted by someone he doesn’t know but is, apparently, a good friend of Yeonjun’s (according to him, _everyone_ is a good friend of his, even if they’ve only exchanged _hellos_ , but Taehyun bites back the urge to point this out).

Taehyun received a few more letters slipped under the door over the course of the week, each of them equally as kind and endearing as the first one, and he found himself looking for them each time he stepped into his room. He worries that it might turn into an obsession for himself, but getting sweet letters after long days of being a Good and Responsible College Student is nice, and he wants to hold onto this as long as he can.

“You need to have some fun!” Beomgyu exclaims from the passenger seat, pulling Taehyun out of his thoughts. “We barely even hang out anymore since you’re so busy all the time.”

“Future student council president, right?” Yeonjun says, clicking his tongue teasingly.

“I have assignments to hand in too, y’know,” Taehyun retorts.

“Just like the rest of us,” Beomgyu chimes in. “Anyway, you’ll like this party! There’ll be tons of people you know who you can talk to.”

“I know you guys. I can just talk to you,” Taehyun concludes.

“ _Au contraire_ ,” Yeonjun says. “Beomgyu’s gonna be with his bandmates and I’ll be with the rest of the dance club.”

Taehyun furrows his eyebrows at them both. “I thought the whole point of dragging me out here was so I could hang out with you guys?”

His question goes unanswered, because they’ve arrived at the party in question. Yeonjun magically gets to park his car right in front of the house despite the amount of people who were already there, and the trio quickly make their way in (which is to say that Yeonjun and Beomgyu were walking quickly with a spring in their steps and Taehyun was trudging behind them).

Taehyun blinks, and suddenly he can’t find either one of his friends. _Great_ , he thinks. He has no idea where they’ve gone off to, and he can’t go home without them since he’s their designated driver. He doesn’t recognize any of the other partygoers either, contrary to Beomgyu’s earlier claim, and Taehyun lets out a small groan. The night has barely started, but he’s already filled with dread.

He makes his way over to the corner of the living room, which takes him a lot more time and effort than he’d like to admit, and sits himself down in a surprisingly unoccupied loveseat. He’s already made up his mind: he’s going to plant himself here, and he’s not getting up until he catches sight of his friends when they’re tipsy and ready to go home.

“Hi Taehyun,” a familiar voice calls. Taehyun whips his head in the direction of the voice, and finds a pleasant surprise looking back at him.

“Soobin, hi,” Taehyun greets, relieved to see someone he knows. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“It was a spontaneous decision,” Soobin answers with a sheepish smile. He’s never been the type to attend parties, and even Yeonjun and Beomgyu could never successfully convince him to go with them, so it surprises Taehyun. Still, he’s thankful—spending a dreadful night at a dreadful party with Soobin is much better than spending it alone. “Are you with anyone?”

“Yeonjun and Beomgyu dragged me here, but they ditched me as soon as we arrived,” Taehyun whines. “Come, sit,” he adds, scooting a little more to the side to make room for Soobin and patting the seat to emphasize his invitation. Soobin gladly accepts, and the two of them stay quiet for a while.

“Where’s Kai?” Soobin asks, breaking the silence.

The question makes Taehyun’s squeeze a little. _Soobin is always looking for Kai_ , he thinks. Of course he is: they’re best friends, just like how Taehyun and Kai are best friends, and Taehyun and Soobin are pretty close too—but that doesn’t stop Taehyun from feeling the sharp ache every time Soobin asks him about Kai. He knows what that ache is, but he quickly pushes it aside. He will have to think about all that some other time.

“He wasn’t feeling too well,” Taehyun answers. “I wanted to stay with him so I could keep an eye on him, but he insisted that I should go and have fun and—well, I’m not exactly having fun now, am I?” he laughs.

“Sorry to hear that,” Soobin says with a sympathetic smile. “If it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t really having fun either. I was miserable, actually.”

Taehyun laughs at that, and Soobin beams at him, making his heart jump just a tiny bit.

“Do you wanna be miserable together then?” Taehyun asks, with a bright smile so wide that you can see his little fangs.

“I’d love that,” Soobin answers.

Maybe the dreadful night won’t be so dreadful after all.

— 

It’s been roughly around a month since Taehyun started getting those anonymous love letters, but for some reason, he never got around to telling anyone about them—not even Kai.

So when he mentions a secret admirer at lunch… needless to say that Taehyun felt like he was being interrogated, while also simultaneously getting jumped.

“What do you mean you’ve been getting secret love letters?” Beomgyu almost yells. “ _And you never told any of us about them?_ ”

“I’m telling you guys _now_ ,” Taehyun mutters in defense. “I just didn’t really have a reason to bring it up, I guess.”

“And _how_ long did you say this has been going?” Beomgyu asks.

“Around a month,” Taehyun answers. Beomgyu’s eyes widen in disbelief, and he starts to launch into a very dramatic speech about friendship and trust and pixie dust ( _huh_ _?_ ), one that Taehyun easily tunes out.

“Someone has a crush on our Taehyun,” Yeonjun remarks with a sly smile on his face. “I wonder who it is,” he hums.

“Probably not someone who knows Taehyun all that well,” Beomgyu grumbles, having cut his speech short since no one was listening to him.

Yeonjun and Beomgyu start spouting any and all names of people they think could be the culprit behind the anonymous love letters, and at this point, Taehyun realizes that Kai and Soobin have been awfully quiet. _Too_ quiet, especially considering the topic of their discussion. On most days, Kai would’ve immediately poked fun and laughed at how odd the situation was, and Soobin would’ve joined in—but both of them are sitting wordlessly, eating their food and only occasionally looking up at the others.

“You two are being uncharacteristically quiet,” Beomgyu points out, just as Taehyun was about to open his mouth to do it himself. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at them.

“Nothing,” Kai answers, a bit too quickly. Beomgyu narrows his eyes at Kai, and Taehyun can practically see gears turning in Beomgyu’s head.

“You’re the secret admirer, aren’t you?”

Beomgyu’s words send Kai choking on his noodles, and while Taehyun, Yeonjun, and Soobin are all trying to help him, Beomgyu announces, “It _is_ you! Only a guilty person would choke on their food after being accused!”

“It’s not me,” Kai says weakly after gulping down some water, exchanging a look with Soobin, who only responds with a soft chuckle. “If I wanted to give Taehyun secret letters, why would I slip them under our door?”

Beomgyu pauses to ponder just for a second before coming up with a counter-argument. “Why not? Wouldn’t it be too obvious that it’s you if you left it in places like on his bed or in his bag?”

“It would be a lot more creepy, too,” Yeonjun mutters.

“Exactly,” Beomgyu agrees. “Under the door or making it _look_ like it was slipped under the door would be your safest bet.”

“Great analysis, Sherlock,” Kai retorts. “But you and I both know I’m terrible at hiding things from people, _especially_ from you guys, so if it really _were_ me, all of you would’ve figured it out weeks ago.”

“He has a point,” Taehyun mumbles.

“Maybe it’s Soobin,” Yeonjun throws in with a laugh, while Beomgyu tries to defend his stance.

Soobin’s cheeks have gone red, unnoticed by Sherlock Beomgyu Holmes and John Yeonjun Watson (and Kai), but not by Taehyun. _Maybe he’s not feeling well_ , Taehyun reasons. That would explain both the red face and the way he’s been quiet for most of today’s lunch.

Taehyun is about to ask Soobin if he’s feeling okay, when Soobin gets up from his seat. “I have class in a few minutes, so I have to get going,” he says. “See you guys later.”

A chorus of _byes_ and _see you laters_ erupts from their small group, with Taehyun waving goodbye with a smile. Soobin waves back, and Taehyun notices another blush. _That’s odd_ , Taehyun thinks, but before he can try to put his inductive reasoning skills to use, Kai reminds him that they’ve got another class of their own to attend to.

“Right,” Taehyun sighs. “Talk to you guys later,” he says to Yeonjun and Beomgyu, before turning to Kai who’s already standing by the table, waiting for him.

Taehyun spends the entirety of their pre-calculus class thinking about Soobin.

—

“Your secret admirer left you another letter,” Kai informs when Taehyun gets up from his desk.

Taehyun’s eyes widen as he immediately spots the envelope on the floor, and he dashes to open the door, hoping to catch his admirer in the act—only to be greeted by nothing (except for a few odd stares from some passersby).

He shuts the door with a heavy sigh before picking up the familiar envelope and plopping himself onto his bed. Turning to Kai, Taehyun questions why he didn’t try to catch whoever left him the letter.

“I didn’t even see him slip it under the door,” Kai answers. “It was already lying there when I noticed it.”

“Him?” Taehyun squints. None of them had any clue as to who the admirer is, and certainly not their pronouns.

Right when Taehyun is about to ask Kai what he knows, the taller boy leaps up from his bed. “I’m off to see Yeonjun.”

“And what business do you have with Yeonjun?” Taehyun questions, eyes still narrowed.

“My business is being his personal assistant while he does dance club president things,” Kai says. “Is that a good enough alibi for you?” he teases.

“Oh, god. Good luck with that,” Taehyun says. Kai gives him a brief nod before leaving their room, and Taehyun turns his attention back to the latest letter.

Like always, he carefully opens the envelope and pulls out the sheet of paper folded neatly inside it.

_Hi Taehyun!_

_Has anyone ever told you how brilliant you are?_

_Not in the smart way (although you_ **_are_ ** _brilliantly smart, but you_

_probably already know that) but in the star kind of way_

_As in, you shine brilliantly_

_Like a star_

_Your eyes, your smile, your laugh—everything about you._

_I think that if you were a star in the sky,_

_you’d be the brightest one of them all._

_Brighter than the Sun, even._

_Take care,_

_Your secret admirer ◠‿◠_

Taehyun can feel his cheeks fill with color as he reads the letter, tinting them scarlet. A few letters ago, the admirer claimed that they weren’t much of a poet, but after reading this one, Taehyun thinks they wouldn’t be too bad of a poet (personally, Taehyun thinks they’d be a great one).

Taehyun picks up the envelope to put the letter back in like he always does—but it doesn’t feel empty like it usually does; it feels like there’s something else in the envelope, and Taehyun quickly reaches in to pull it out.

It’s a small, rectangular thing, about the size of a card. It’s a polaroid, taken with someone’s Fujifilm camera—probably Beomgyu’s—and the coloring of the photo is so off, Taehyun can _barely_ make out who the subjects of the photo are. But he does.

It’s Taehyun, linking arms with someone who suspiciously looks like Soobin.

He knows this picture very well. He remembers it very clearly: Yeonjun had insisted on taking them all out to one of his good friends’ parties a little further out from campus than usual, and there was no escaping it since they had only just finished their midterms. Beomgyu had been spending all week taking candids of people with his brand new camera, so while Yeonjun and Kai were off wreaking havoc somewhere, Beomgyu had snuck up on Soobin and Taehyun, who were trying to walk out to the garden.

The flash was blinding, then, and only now does Taehyun realize that Soobin’s smile that night was even more blinding—because this is the first time Taehyun’s seen the photo since the night it was taken. Because Soobin had been the one who kept it.

It makes sense to Taehyun, maybe too much sense, and he feels himself growing restless. He doesn’t like it, not a bit, because being restless means he’s thinking too much without actually being able to _do_ anything, so he takes a deep breath and tries to sort out his thoughts.

That day at lunch. The silence and the blushing. The way Soobin beamed at him at that party. Kai saying _him_ earlier when they had always been addressing the admirer as _them_. The ‘Hi Taehyun’ that comes every time Soobin sees him. Even the emoji in the letters and on the envelopes—they look exactly like Soobin; it frustrates Taehyun that he didn’t figure it out sooner (in his defence, college has been taking up too much of his time for him to spend any of it on his investigation).

Logically, the next course of action would be to confront Soobin—except the mere thought of it sends Taehyun’s head reeling. He _wants_ to talk to Soobin about it, but he’s not entirely sure if he can, because talking to Soobin about it means talking about Soobin’s feelings for Taehyun, which in turn will lead to talking _Taehyun’s_ feelings for Soobin, and he doesn’t know if he can really do that yet. He likes Soobin, he knows that much, but saying it out loud? He doesn’t know if he has the courage for it yet.

A knock comes at the door, snapping Taehyun out of his reverie. _Did Kai forget his key again?_ Taehyun wonders, tucking the polaroid into the pocket of his hoodie as he gets up from his desk and goes to open the door.

Taehyun turns the doorknob, ready to nag Kai for being careless again, but when he swings the door open, he finds that he can’t nag Kai, because it’s not Kai who’s standing in front of him.

It’s Soobin.

“Hi Taehyun,” Soobin greets him, out of breath like he’s just finished running a marathon.

“Hi,” Taehyun replies. He doesn’t know what to say next, so he waits for Soobin to catch his breath and continue instead.

“Have you—have you seen Kai?” Soobin asks through his gasps of breath.

“He left like 10 minutes ago,” Taehyun answers. “I did see something else though.”

Soobin’s previously flushed face drains of color, eyes going wide. _So it really is you_ , Taehyun thinks. He pulls out the polaroid from his pocket, and somehow Soobin’s eyes grow even wider.

“That’s—that’s mine,” Soobin says.

“I found it,” Taehyun says. “In a small envelope. With a letter about how I’m brilliant like a star.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be there,” Soobin sighs, closing his eyes in embarrassment. “I don’t know—I don’t even know when Kai stole the polaroid but he did and when Beomgyu caught him, he said he was doing it for my own good so I’m guessing—I’m guessing he put it in there.”

Taehyun finds this all rather amusing, really. You can trust Kai to be the one to meddle with things like these, and you can trust Beomgyu to be the one to _let_ him—and you can trust Yeonjun to be the one to unknowingly save Kai from getting his ass whooped. Judging by the look on his face, Soobin doesn’t seem to find it nearly as amusing, so Taehyun decides that the time for proper confrontation has arrived. They’ll have to talk about their feelings, whether they like it or not—it’s the universe’s will, it seems.

“Let’s talk inside,” Taehyun suggests, beckoning for Soobin to come in, and he does, shutting the door behind him. Taehyun sits cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the side of his bed, so Soobin mirrors him, leaning against the side of Kai’s bed.

Taehyun is trying to think of the best way to start this conversion when Soobin blurts out, “I like you.”

Taehyun can’t help but let out a light giggle. Soobin gives him a curious look, and Taehyun thinks maybe he should make it easy for them both.

Clearing his throat and mustering up whatever courage he has in him, Taehyun says, “I like you too.”

Silence befalls them, only for a few moments, but it feels like an eternity.

“What?” Soobin questions.

“I said," Taehyun inhales. "I like you too.”

“Since _when_?” Soobin asks in disbelief, and Taehyun doesn’t know if he wants to kiss him or smack him.

“I don’t even really know when,” Taehyun admits. “But a while now, I think. Long enough that it bothered me whenever you asked me about Kai.”

Soobin leans back against Kai’s bed, closing his eyes and letting out a frustrated groan. “I think. I think I may be an idiot.”

“You are,” Taehyun agrees, a teasing lilt to his voice. “But I am too.”

“ _You_? An idiot like me?”

“I said it bothered me when you would ask me about Kai, right?” Taehyun starts. “It’s because I thought you liked him.”

The two boys easily collapse into a fit of laughter, because they really are both idiots, too dense to have realized anything in the years they’ve known each other.

“That was terribly embarrassing to admit,” Taehyun says under his breath, but Soobin catches it.

“Thanks for sharing it with me then,” he tells him, with a fond smile on his face.

It grows quiet between them again, the comfortable kind. It’s always been easy for them to sit together, talking about everything and nothing, and Taehyun wonders why he never noticed it before. He wonders why it took him this long to realize that it’s the kind of comfortable silence that comes when two people understand each other, the kind that some people would spend all their lives searching for.

“Can I kiss you?” Soobin asks softly, breaking the silence. It catches Taehyun off-guard, but he nods.

Time moves impossibly slowly when Soobin starts to shift his way over to Taehyun, when he starts to lean in close, when Taehyun closes his eyes as he anticipates Soobin’s lips on his—and then suddenly, everything happens at once.

Sparks fly. Taehyun’s heart feels like it could burst. His head is filled with nothing but thoughts of Soobin, thoughts of how soft his lips feel against his, thoughts of how nice this is, of how he’d have to nag Kai for meddling and thank him for it at the same time.

Soobin pulls away first, and when Taehyun opens his eyes, there’s another fond smile on his face.

“That was nice,” Soobin says quiety. “Really nice.”

“It was,” Taehyun agrees.

“I’m still gonna jump Kai when he comes back later,” Soobin says, making Taehyun giggle again.

“And I’ll join you,” Taehyun says, earning a crescent-eyed smile from Soobin in return. “I have one question for you though, about the letters.”

“Hmm?”

“Can I still get them even though I know who you are now?” Taehyun asks, half-teasing and half-secretly-hoping that Soobin will agree to it.

“I’ll write you as many love letters as you want,” Soobin answers, voice light and quiet.

That’s more than enough for Taehyun.

**Author's Note:**

> original prompt:
>
>>   
> College AU where Soobin sends anonymous love letters to Taehyun by slipping them under his dorm door. But one day Hueningkai secretly attaches a polaroid of Taebin in the letter and Taehyun can finally confront his admirer.  
> 
> 
> it was my first time writing taebin and it was a lot of fun! i hope i did the prompt justice, and i hope you enjoy reading :]
> 
> kudos and comments are welcome and appreciated!
> 
> talk to me on [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/yueliangs)


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